Welcome. This is the 1-hour guide to successful thinking.
Everything you’re about to hear in this program revolves around a simple concept:
We choose what we think about---what we think about determines our actions—and our actions determine our results.
If we’re unhappy with our results, we need to change the thoughts and actions that are creating them. This is the premise of successful thinking and it’s been proven accurate, time and time again.
Before we start, I’ve got just a few suggestions:
1. Don’t worry about answering the questions in your workbook until the second or third time you listen to the program. That will give you a little bit more time to think about everything.
2. If you hear specific things that you find really useful, those are the things you should focus on. Don’t bother with any of the stuff that you don’t like or don’t agree with. The only information that matters is the information that you can use.
3. Understand that I’ve seen FIRST HAND the results of applying these concepts, and, it’s only because of that first hand experience that I know they work.
Now, lets begin, starting with how important it is for us to THINK correctly:
The importance of thinking correctly should be common sense. And by thinking correctly, what I mean is: Thinking in a way that is productive instead of counter-productive.
But for many, the topic just gets blown off as another “lets all think positive” speech.
Now, I can only guess the doubters of positive thinking must have (at least in their own mind) a good reason why they think it’s not useful. …who knows, maybe they convinced themselves they were going to win the lottery…they “thought positive” about it for three months, and then when they didn’t win, they decided that whole “positive thinking” thing just doesn’t work.
Well, that’s a perfect example of an imperfect conclusion. That’s like me deciding lifting weights doesn’t “work” because even after a solid year of working out I never got any smarter. Guess what? Lifting weights isn’t supposed to make me any smarter; it’s supposed to make me stronger!
And likewise, improving the quality of your thoughts isn’t supposed to increase your ability to control things that nobody on the planet has the ability to control.
Instead, the HUGE effect of improving your mind is going to be seen in the results you get from those things you DO have control or influence over. And those things, believe it or not, make up the MAJORITY of your life.
We all know, or should know anyway, that if we want a different result, it often requires a different approach. And let’s be clear, when we say we want a “different” result, what we really mean is we want a “better result.” So in turn, it’s likely what we need is a better approach. An approach that either improves on what we’re already doing, or replaces it all together.
The first and most important place we can begin the process of “improving our approach” starts with improving our minds. Our minds contain all the software that runs the machine. The better shape our minds are in, the more we can accomplish with less and less effort. To expand on this a little, consider the following analogy:
Assume you have two computers. The first computer we’ll call “average.” It isn’t the fastest, it isn’t the slowest, but overall you can rely on it to do 95% of what any computer should do.
The second computer is “State of the art.” It has the most powerful processor available, it has the fastest memory on the market…it has all the bells and whistles, it’s as good as it gets.
Now before either one of them can do anything, they’re going to need an operating system. Because, without an operating system, all you have is a bunch of parts that can’t communicate with one another…so, we’ll start there.
On the average computer we’re going to install an operating system that’s built on solid, accurate, and reliable code. No corrupt files, no viruses, nothing that’s going to needlessly drain its ability to function efficiently.
On the “cutting edge” computer, we’re going to install an operating system that is built on weak, inaccurate and unreliable code…and, just for fun, we’re also going to install a bunch of viruses and unnecessary programs that are just going to increase the likelihood that it constantly locks up and crashes.
Given a choice, which computer do you want to work on? …Pretty simple question to answer…but, if you’re forced to use the computer that’s essentially running corrupt software, how long do you think it’ll be before you figure out a way to erase the whole thing and reinstall whatever it takes to make it run correctly? I’m guessing not very long because you’d literally be pulling your hair out trying to get anything done on that machine.
Our minds, although far more powerful and certainly less limited, work in a similar way. If, along the line, we’ve picked up “bad code,” we begin to find it difficult to function, let alone make significant progress. But the good news is, unlike the computer in our example, we have the ability to test the productivity of our own thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, our software and we can make upgrades as needed.
The information we’ll be covering in this course isn’t new. It’s been around for as long as successful people have had the ability to write it down. And if you think about it, that’s good news. You don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s accurate when you can actually go and check its track record. And you’ll find its track record is very good.
So far, we’ve touched on a very important part of successful thinking, which is; how you think and what you choose to think about is extremely important. Now, we’ll move on to some other concepts that build well on that foundation, starting with: The first step in every successful life.
